Foreword
By Pierre Mollier
Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society • Vol . 6 , No . 2 • Fall 2018 / Spring 2019
“
Ramsay again !” The founding Oration of our dear Scotsman should be the object of constant study . With our colleague Reinhard Markner , we are publishing here the round table organized at the most recent World Conference on Fraternalism and Freemasonry at the National Library of France in May 2017 . Aymeric Le Delliou begins by reminding us of the intellectual and spiritual journey of the knight . He shows us how many of his ideas can be connected to the theological debates of his times , to the grand affair of Quietism , and to his mentorship by Fénelon and Madame Guyon . And yet Ramsay later developed his own thought ... which was sometimes quite distinct when compared to the classic ideas of Christianity . From a certain perspective , The Travels of Cyrus are unquestionably a bildungsroman . Hence , seeing it as a masonic tale is not unimaginable , but not without risk either . Nevertheless , the man is the same and it is legitimate to think that the ideas developed in the 1727 novel could be found a few years later , in another form , in the Oration of 1736 . For this reason , Samuel Macaigne proposes a rich analysis of one of the “ best sellers ” of the Enlightenment . We know that the most curious account of Ramsay , and the most interesting in terms of his ties to freemasonry , is the description by Geusau , a German intellectual who traveled to Paris at the start of the 1740s . Reinhard Markner reviews the history of Geusau ’ s Diary and , turning to the manuscript itself , he provides us with an edition of this important account that is the closest to the original text . Finally , Sophie Desplanches examines Ramsay ’ s attitude towards the Jacobin question . From a sincere commitment in his youth ... to a certain detachment .
Our issue concludes with a pioneering article by Denis Lefebvre on the Universal League of Freemasons . A sympathetic attempt to establish a bridge between the two major and divided masonic movements : “ Regulars ” and “ Liberals .” A history that has been forgotten today despite the success of the UFL between 1920 and 1960 . iii doi : 10.18278 / rscs . 6.2.1